Category Archives: World News

US swelters on Independence Day with over 150m people under heat alerts

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‘Severe’ and ‘potentially record-breaking’ heatwave sends temperatures soaring across US

More than 150 million people were under heat alerts on Thursday morning, as a brutal and potentially historic heatwave sent temperatures soaring across the US on Independence Day with little chance of relief over the next week, even after dark.

Forecasters warned that high overnight temperatures and the long-lasting duration of the extreme event will increase the danger, posing additional risks to human health and the rapid spread of wildfires.

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Israel has approved ‘largest West Bank land grab in 30 years’, watchdog says

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Peace Now says approval of more than 12 sq km is biggest since peace process began in 1993

Israel has approved the largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in more than three decades, according to a report released by an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog, a move that will exacerbate the escalating tensions surrounding the conflict in Gaza.

Peace Now said authorities recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 sq km (nearly 5 sq miles) of land in the Jordan valley, indicating it was “the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo accords”, referring to the start of the peace process.

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EU brushes aside risk of China trade war over electric vehicle tariffs

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Higher levies on Chinese EV imports to come into force despite carmakers’ fears of retaliation

The EU’s top trade official, Valdis Dombrovskis, has brushed aside concerns of trade-war retaliation from Beijing against European business, after the European Commission imposed duties on Chinese electric vehicles.

Dombrovskis, a European Commission vice-president, told Bloomberg Television that talks with China were ongoing, adding: “We are not seeing the basis for retaliation as what we are conducting is indeed in line with WTO [World Trade Organization] rules.”

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A newly discovered letter by Thomas Jefferson shows ‘a regular guy with financial burdens’

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The note, valued at $40,000, is for sale in honor of Fourth of July, also the 198th anniversary of the president’s death

He came from one of America’s wealthiest landowning families, and was ranked the fourth richest US president in a recent study. But Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third president, harbored a secret during his time in the White House: he was almost constantly in penury, and struggled to pay his food bills, servants and other household expenses.

The revelation comes in a previously unpublished letter that Jefferson, who was president from 1801 to 1809, wrote to a friend who acted as his financial agent in October 1802.

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French PM says ‘no place for violence and intimidation’ after candidate attacked putting up election posters – as it happened

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Gabriel Attal said candidate Prisca Thevenot and members of her campaign team were attacked by four individuals

The Ecologists’ Marine Tondelier has criticised the far right National Rally’s Jordan Bardella, arguing that his party is allowing some candidates who made racist, anti-Semitic and misogynistic comments to remain on the ballot.

The French prosecutor’s office said it opened an investigation into an assault with a weapon against a public official, after government spokesperson and candidate Prisca Thevenot and her team were attacked yesterday, the Associated Press reported.

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French critic sues after Spanish theatre-maker’s insults on stage

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Angélica Liddell, who describes herself as an ‘irresponsible artist’, read out a bad review by Stéphane Capron and called him a ‘bastard’

A Spanish theatre-maker is being sued for defamation by a French theatre critic after she read out one of his reviews on stage, flashed her bare bottom at the audience and called him a “bastard”.

In a stunt that has sparked a debate about the limits of artistic freedom in politically divisive times, Angélica Liddell, a director and performer, read out a list of negative reviews of her past work from French critics, many of whom were in attendance at her opening show of the Avignon performing arts festival on Saturday.

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After nine years in office, is it time for Justin Trudeau to go?

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After a shocking electoral upset the public is growing increasingly weary of his tenure – and of his Liberal party

A Canadian prime minister who has outstayed his welcome, persistent inflation, a government bumped and bruised by scandal and a fired-up opposition leader itching for a public showdown.

It was against this backdrop, four decades ago, that Pierre Trudeau took his apocryphal “walk in the snow” and decided not to contest the next federal election.

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Coffee, eggs and white rice linked to higher levels of PFAS in human body

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Study that researchers say highlights chemicals’ ubiquity also shows PFAS association with seafood and red meat

New research aimed at identifying foods that contain higher levels of PFAS found people who eat more white rice, coffee, eggs and seafood typically showed more of the toxic chemicals in their plasma and breast milk.

The study checked samples from 3,000 pregnant mothers, and is among the first research to suggest coffee and white rice may be contaminated at higher rates than other foods. It also identified an association between red meat consumption and levels of PFOS, one of the most common and dangerous PFAS compounds.

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Could Venezuela’s softly-spoken opposition newcomer end 25 years of Chavismo?

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Hopes rise that Edmundo González Urrutia can beat Nicolas Maduro on 28 July and lead the country out of a wretched decade

The road from Caracas to Guatire is lined with propaganda billboards glorifying President Nicolás Maduro and likening his political rivals to gangsters from the country’s most infamous criminal group. “They won’t defeat us,” the slogan declares.

But with less than a month until the economically fractured South American country holds its long-awaited presidential election on 28 July, some people are not persuaded.

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Japan introduces enormous humanoid robot to maintain train lines

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The 12-metre high machine has coke bottle eyes and a crude Wall-E-like head, as well as large arms that can be fitted with blades or paint brushes

It resembles an enormous, malevolent robot from 1980s sci-fi but West Japan Railway’s new humanoid employee was designed with nothing more sinister than a spot of painting and gardening in mind.

Starting this month, the large machine with enormous arms, a crude, disproportionately small Wall-E-like head and coke-bottle eyes mounted on a truck – which can drive on rails – will be put to use for maintenance work on the company’s network.

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Hurricane Beryl hits Jamaica after leaving ‘Armageddon-like’ trail in Grenada

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Jamaican PM says worst is yet to come as category 4 storm hits southern coast after causing at least seven deaths in region

Hurricane Beryl has hit Jamaica after leaving an “Armageddon-like” trail of devastation in Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) and killing at least seven people across the region.

The category 4 storm hit the island’s southern coast on Wednesday afternoon with maximum sustained winds of 140mph (225km/h), pummeling communities and knocking out communications as emergency groups evacuated people in flood-prone communities.

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Biden wins crucial support of Democratic governors to continue campaign: ‘We’re going to have his back’ – as it happened

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House Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington said that Joe Biden “is going to lose to Trump” following the president’s poor debate performance last week.

In a new interview with KATU News, Gluesenkamp Perez said: “About 50 million Americans tuned in and watched that debate. I was one of them for about five very painful minutes. We all saw what we saw, you can’t undo that, and the truth, I think, is that Biden is going to lose to Trump.”

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California neo-Nazi found guilty of murder of former classmate

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Samuel Woodward faces life without parole after conviction in killing of Blaze Bernstein, 19, in Orange county in 2018

A southern California jury has convicted Samuel Woodward of the 2018 murder of former high school classmate Blaze Bernstein, following a three month-long trial that re-excavated a brutal killing that made international headlines for the perpetrator’s membership in the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division organization.

Bernstein, a 19-year-old pre-med student at the University of Pennsylvania, disappeared on 2 January 2018 after meeting up with Woodward, then 20, that evening. The pair, who had attended the Orange County High School for the Arts together, had reconnected over the dating app Tinder. Bernstein’s body was found six days later, buried in a park in Orange county. Woodward was the last person Bernstein was in contact with, and immediately fell under suspicion.

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Gretchen Whitmer wants to meet far-right plotters who tried to kill her, book reveals

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Exclusive: Michigan governor and potential Biden replacement writes in memoir True Gretch of desire for ‘face-to-face’ talks

Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan widely spoken of as a possible Democratic candidate for president should Joe Biden cede to growing pressure and leave the race, wants to meet members of a far-right militia who plotted to kidnap and kill her.

“I asked whether I could meet with one of the handful of plotters who’d pleaded guilty and taken responsibility for their actions, just to talk,” Whitmer writes in a new book, of the plot motivated by resistance to Covid public health measures and revealed with 13 arrests in late 2020.

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About 90% of people in Gaza displaced since war began, says UN agency

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Many have moved more than once, with estimated 1.9m Palestinians relocating since Israel’s invasion, says OCHA

About 90% of the population of the Gaza Strip have been displaced at least once since the war between Israel and Hamas began, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency.

Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN’s OCHA agency in the Palestinian territories, said on Wednesday that about 1.9 million people are thought to be displaced in Gaza.

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Germany’s first black African-born MP to stand down after racist abuse

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Karamba Diaby’s announcement he wants to spend time with family comes after bullet and arson attacks on his office

The first black African-born MP to enter the German parliament has announced he will not be standing in next year’s federal election, weeks after he revealed the hate mail, including racist slurs and death threats, he and his staff had received.

Karamba Diaby, 62, who entered the Bundestag in 2013 in a moment hailed as historic by equality campaigners, said he wanted to spend more time with his family and to make room for younger politicians.

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Italian court upholds murder convictions of two Americans over death of police officer

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Court of appeal reduces sentences of Finnegan Lee Elder, 24, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 23 over killing of Mario Cerciello Rega

An Italian court of appeal has upheld the murder convictions of two American men over the death of an Italian plainclothes police officer during a botched sting operation but reduced their sentences. The new trial was ordered after Italy’s highest court threw out their original convictions.

The court convicted Finnegan Lee Elder and sentenced him to 15 years and two months in prison and gave a sentence of 11 years to Gabriele Natale-Hjorth.

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Thousands of Albanians honour author Ismail Kadare in Tirana

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PM pays tribute to country’s best-known novelist as coffin is covered in national flag and flowers

Thousands of Albanians have gathered in Tirana to pay tribute to their country’s best-known novelist, Ismail Kadare, who died on Monday after a heart attack.

Flags flew at half-mast as the 88-year-old writer and poet’s coffin lay in state in the entrance hall of the Opera and Ballet theatre in Skanderbeg Square, surrounded by National Guard officers.

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Banksy-funded migrant rescue boat detained in Italy after saving 37 people

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Artist calls impounding of MV Louise Michel ‘vile and unacceptable’ after rescue of 17 unaccompanied children

A rescue boat financed by Banksy has been seized by Italian authorities after being involved in an effort to rescue 37 people from the central Mediterranean sea, the British street artist and the vessel’s crew have said on social media.

The move comes just days after an inflatable boat carrying dummy refugees was launched into the crowd during a set by the British rock band Idles at the Glastonbury festival, a stunt masterminded by the anonymous graffiti artist and criticised by the UK home secretary, James Cleverly, as “vile”.

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Man charged over attack on Danish prime minister

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Suspect to plead not guilty after Mette Frederiksen assaulted in a Copenhagen square last month

A Polish man has been charged with assault over last month’s attack on the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, in a Copenhagen square.

A man walked up to Frederiksen in a square in central Copenhagen in the late afternoon on 7 June and punched her on her right upper arm. The prime minister suffered minor whiplash but was otherwise unharmed.

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